Set Your Soul Alight
by TheLadyMuse
Summary: (a constellation of your heart) Yuuri's Soul Marks are revealed against his will. WARNING: Yuuri is a bit moody and OOC because this is how I think he would react when completely confident. Since a guest commented about me trying to 'remake' YOI into my own world, this is a SOUL MARK FIC. And, as above, there are warnings about the content for a reason.


It doesn't matter, people think, that Katsuki Yuuri doesn't have a Soul Mark. Not everyone does, after all. They don't know about the ring of stars around his thigh. Brown for Nishigori, blue for Yuuko, three tiny rose pink ones between them, followed by three golden ones for his family. Rich, swirling chocolate for Vicchan. Deep red for Phichit, with green and silver for Yurio and Vitya. The rest is filled with teeny, tiny stars that indicate others important to him.

If they knew that technically speaking, Yuuri Katsuki has the most complicated mark of his birth year, the world in general would be shocked.

But they don't know. No one does because Yuuri has yet to be intimate with anyone.

They find out in the worst way.

A foreign skater bangs into him during a warmup, landing him facedown on the ice before another two trip on him, their skates tearing open the leg of his costume. Everyone had seen Vitya bare the mark on his own thigh years before, even Phichit and Yurio have done so. But not Yuuri, who gasps with the pain before groaning

"Fuck. Didn't want to do it like this." He rises, gracefully tearing off the leg of his costume before slowly turning so the camera can see the entire Mark. Head bowed, Katsuki Yuuri says in Japanese before translating to English

"This mark I wear.

It means I welcome you,

into my home,

into my arms,

into my soul.

Your peace unending,

So mote it be."

With just a bit of a limp, he comes off the ice, shrugging off a stunned Victor in favour of the attending medic. She gives him a sympathetic look and murmurs

"All that has been,

will come again, so

come, frind, rejoice

with me, your Mark

bare for all to see."

Before cataloging his scrapes, clucking her tongue and then shaking her head. Yuuri groans and complains

"But it took forever to get here!" She rises gracefully, pressing a kiss to his cheek before shrugging her shoulders and saying placidly

"Gomenasai, Katsuki-san. You wrenched your hip out there, can't injure yourself further if you want to keep skating." Sighing, Yuuri sat to pull off his skates and tear off the remains of his costume, revealing the black leotard underneath. Gratefully, he accepted the fluffy robe the medic with twinkling eyes handed him, tossing him simple slippers before plopping a blanket in his lap.

For the rest of the competition, Yuuri sulks about having revealed his marks and not competing, brooding through his rivals' performances. He hadn't wanted to show them his marks, but tradition demanded that once seen, you showed all your marks. Yuuri had been lucky, all his marks in one place, fairly easy to conceal. Yuuko had wondered about the black star on her own thigh as a teenager.

Now they know. They ALL know. Not surprisingly, when the sulky Yuuri congratulates Victor on his gold and Yurio on his silver, he gets asked by a reporter about hiding his marks. Yuuri snorts and replies bitingly

"My marks appeared about a year after Vitya showed his off. I had more important things to do than get accused of faking Marks."

Grumbling to himself, the Japanese skater stalks off to change, refusing to appear at the Banquet, and reluctantly agreeing to remain for the Exhibition. He wants to go home, he says, not linger and have people stare at him.

He knows, in his heart and his soul, that when their curiosity is sated, the press will leave him alone. But the others... they want, first and foremost, to know why he concealed his marks. For most, they are a point of pride. The same over-prepared medic (he discovers her name is Sonya) allows him time to recuperate in her own home in the city, barring the door to all but her closest friends, all friendly but healer-types like Sonya, able to discern Yuuri doesn't want to talk.

So they don't force it. He's grateful that he can let the media storm die and then confront his friends (his Soulbound) at the rink.

When he explains that his original excuse was the correct one, it is, unusually, Yuratchka who understands, explaining how he'd gotten caught up in a similar scandal just after returning from Japan, the whole thing kept under wraps because the fan's family was wealthy enough that said fan doing something crazy was cause for concern, not simply a 'mild' embarrassment.

Though it is gradually mended, Yuuri never quite feels the rift close with anyone but Yurio, who understands what Yuuri wanted to avoid. The importance of the event gradually fades, but he still feels the pinch his secret-keeping has inserted in many of his bonds.

 **The verses that Yuuri and Sonya recite are traditional acknowledgments of either having bared your Marks or seeing someone's Marks.**


End file.
